I'm also thinking of removing and replacing Aura as a spell completely, and just leave the Stones, so it is no longer possible to obtain larger amounts of Aura by drawing it in battle. I guess putting the spell on Ultima Weapon was not limiting enough, so for the next version, it will at least be moved to Omega Weapon and then possibly be completely removed in the version after that. Not sure what to replace the Aura spell with yet, but Aura in its current state needs to be addressed for sure.

The thing with trying to balance Aura is that it is kind of like Hero/Holy War. You either have it or you don't and once you gain access to it, it makes everything much easier. There's not a lot of room in between.

I agree with limiting its availability or quantity, though it kind of sucks to lose out on a potential high tier junction. Putting it on Omega pretty much limits it to the last two fights in the game, which could actually serve as a neat little cue for the player that this is it: the final showdown.

As for replacing the spell, what about a physical damage increasing buff? Kind of like berserk but without the loss of control. I feel like physical would be really lacking late-game in the absence of Aura and a spell like this would fill in nicely.

Encounters with T-Rexaurs on Balamb can no longer begin with a back attack to avoid unnecessary Game Overs.

Mesmerizes now appear in one of the scripted battles during the Norg scenario, which can be important for a certain weapon upgrade.

Bombs now appear in some of the random enemy encounters on the Galbadia continent for similar reasons.

Cockatrices now appear in the Laguna flashback in Winhill, alongside Bite Bugs and Caterchipillars.

The encounter rate for the Oilboyle screen at MD-Levels has been reduced.

Random enemy encounters have been disabled in all cells of D-District Prison.

Chocobo World

More items have been entirely removed from Chocobo World:

Three Stars

Status Guard

Elem Guard

Megalixir

Shaman Stone

Aura Stone

Fury Fragment

Moon Stone

Inferno Fang

Laser Cannon

Pulse Ammo

Some of the good items that are still available include: Healing Ring (=100 Curagas), Phoenix Pinion (=100 Firagas), Energy Crystal, Power Generator, Stat Up items.

Ultimate Weapons

The base power of each Ultimate Weapon has been increased. This value works independently from the bonus they add to each character's Strength stat, so a standard physical attack performed with an Ultimate Weapon will always inflict more damage than all the lower tier weapons, even if the character is already at 255 Strength. Note that the increased power from those weapons will affect standard physcial attacks only. Limit Breaks power is excluded from this change and relies solely on a character's Strength stat, as usual.

Universal damage limit removal

The 9999 HP damage limit has been removed for all attacks and the new limit is 60,000 HP, mainly to increase the incentive to use standard physical attacks and GF more often in the late-game. This change includes Gravity based attacks as well, so they are now extremely useful on enemies that have high HP, such as Malboro, Snow Lion or Iron Giants. To prevent Gravity attacks from becoming too powerful overall, it was necessary to make a few more enemies immune to them, or give certain bosses that are vulnerable to it a massive HP boost to compensate for the change.

This, alongside stronger Ultimate Weapons, should also solve the issue in regards to standard physical attacks becoming rather useless in the late-game, as it is now possible to get excellent value out of Darkside, especially in combination with critical hits and abuse of elemental weaknesses. In order to keep the total physical damage output in check, the Darkside Ability is now learned by only one GF, and many late-enemies and bosses have had their stats increased, as stated before. Some more Limit Breaks had to be reduced in power too, as they would do absurd damage with the cap removed, such as Blasting Zone, and most of Zell's Duel finishers.

I'm not sure if I succeeded in balancing out every late-game enemy around this new feature properly, as I haven't really had the time to do so yet. If you find something really off, like doing more than 30,000 HP damage on a certain enemy by using only a single physical attack, please report it here.

Angel Wing

The Angel Wing damage multiplier has been increased from 3 to 4, so using this Limit Break always has an advantage over just casting Triple spells. Furthermore, spell determination no longer depends on what spells Rinoa currently has in her inventory. Instead, the spells she uses are now randomly selected from a set table that consists of only higher tier spells, with different probabilities for each spell.

Summoning Odin

Odin summon mechanics have been changed in a way that he no longer interrupts battles randomly, and is now summoned by using an item instead, to avoid his often unwanted occurrences once and for all. After defeating Odin at Centra Ruins, the player receives 10 units of this new summon item, and 3 more each time Odin's chamber is visited again after all of these items are used up. There is no other way of getting this item, so the maximum amount the player can carry at the same time will always be limited.

The idea behind this change is adding another resource management element to the game, and of course also to make getting Odin more worthwhile. Gilgamesh is not available in this version of mod for now, as I haven't found a way to get these items out of the item menu properly right before the Seifer battle at the end of disc 3. He might return in a later version though.

Important: This change as a whole can cause quirks on game saves in which Odin has already been unlocked. If you wish to use this version of the mod on an older save that has Odin unlocked, I would recommend using the Hyne tool, go to G-Forces, select the Griever icon and untick Odin from there. Otherwise, Odin will still appear randomly at the beginning of a battle.

Other changes and bugfixes

Draw amounts in battle have been further increased, so even low Mag characters can draw basic spells relatively fast.

Some more new battle items that replace Death/Holy/Flare/Meteor/Ultima Stones have been added.

Get a healing item from Raine at the end of the Winhill flashback, depending on how many enemies have been defeated on Laguna's patrol.

A new sidequest is now available at Fire Cavern after the Lunar Cry event. Zell will mention it inside Ragnarok after Squall returns from space.

CC-Spade can now abolish all card rules for all areas on disc 4.

A save opportunity has been added between the Missile Base and Norg scenario events on disc 2.

A Junk Shop can now be accessed through CC-Joker inside D-District prison and Balamb Garden Training Center.

The FH shop can now be accessed through the old man at FH Seaside Station as well.

Status effects for GF can now be checked in battles when pressing start while having the cursor on the respective GF.

A mistakenly placed Card rule reset option has been removed from the vendor in FH inn.

Some enemy attacks have been renamed. For example, all "Breath" attacks now have their own, unique name.

Step Mine uses another animation, as the previous one didn't display correctly when hitting 4 enemies.

Thanks again for all the feedback lately - not only through users on these forums, but also through XeroKynos, who was streaming this mod a while back, which was very helpful in spotting certain late-game imbalances directly. Also huge thanks to Sega Chief, whose Ifrit tool enemy AI fix came in handy, and JWP who came up with an Angel Wing Patch that was necessary to put my ideas into practice. I hope it's a decent, less broken alternative compared to endless Meteor spam

@Yuey: I don't think a damage boosting spell in Aura's place is all that necessary anymore, now that the general damage cap has been lifted. I was also thinking about another Water elemental spell, as this particular element is still underrepresented in this mod, due to possible animations being sparse and/or broken when used by own party (the Grand Mantis one, for example). I'll keep your idea in mind though.

@Ai: Roses and Wine W07 is necessary to make a lot of this mod's changes work (everything that comes from the text file), such as drawing more than 9 spell units per Draw in battle, or proper magic damage calculation. I hope Yuey's link will help you getting it.

@Callisto, Could you perhaps name places where you should be able to get Triple and Ultima? I'm playing your mod and I really hope I didn't miss any of those spells, right now I'm after taking back Rinoa from Sorceress Memorial. I saw that Ultima Weapon has them but come on, getting them from this boss? (Obviously not mentioning refining items into magic, mostly talking about Triple since Ultima is only obtainable via refining and Ultima Weapon)

BTW. I really love your mod, before it I completed this game about 20-30 times and it was always oh so easy, with your mod, it's a completely new experience.

P.S.: Since I'm past middle of the game would it be possible for you to edit files from mod version 1.1.2 that would fix the SeeD rank problem at lv 16? I would not like to update to version 1.1.3 since there are pretty substantial changes between those two versions.

There's actually a quite cheap way to draw free Triples in this mod. If you do all the base game sidequests on disc 3/4, you'll eventually find the enemy that has it. Let me know if you would like a more direct answer, and I'll put in a spoiler tag.

Ultima availabilty is actually unchanged from the base game, so it can be still only drawn from Ultima and Omega Weapon, as usual. If you want it as early as possible, I would recommend doing the fixed Elnoyle encounter in Esthar over and over, then using Forbid Mag-RF to make Ultimas out of the dropped Energy Crystals. The refinement ratio is even slightly more efficient than usual (1-5 instead of 1-3).

Here is a link to the 1.1.2 text file that has the SeeD Rank 16 bug fixed:

Thank you very much Callisto, I'm going back to the game with SeeD fix

I'll let you know about Triple, Right now I'm in the middle of chocobo quest so I will probably do them all

EDIT: Do you have any comprehensive list of added sidequests? Maybe not like what exactly you get from them but something that would lead us to them? Also any changes to existing sidequests?

PS. Just got Triples, clever way to hide it in the game

Also got a question, I think it was done in 1.1.3 version but, are effects of Stat Bonus abilities that Cactuar can learn are neglected by the fact that now characters by default get certain stat buffs with every level? Is it even worth bothering with those abilities in 1.1.2?

SeeD Party *1Before heading to Fire Cavern, make sure to visit Balamb Garden's Quad. Exhaust Selphie's dialogue until she asks about joining the Garden Festival committee. If you agree, you will receive two items from her during the SeeD party later. If you skip this step, you still have the chance to join the committee during the party, but then you will only receive one item instead of two.

Fire Cavern time limits *1The time limits for completing the SeeD test at Fire Cavern have been restructured, and it is now possible to choose 5 minutes, which yields a special reward when exiting the cave after defeating Ifrit.

The Cafeteria Lady and her lost son *1Listen to the Cafteria Lady's full dialogue at Balamb Garden's Cafeteria before heading to Timber on disc 1. Later on disc 2, this will make her son appear near the station in Fisherman's Horizon after the boss battle against BGH251F2. Talk to Mayor Dobe when he is sitting on the floor, then exit the screen and re-enter. The Cafeteria Lady's son should have appeared to the left now. Talk to him before the FH concert starts (the last chance is when controlling Irvine) and pick the correct answer while Squall wonders who he is to receive an item.

Helping the guards in Timber *1When having the chance to fully explore Timber for the first time, make sure to stop by the Town's Gate near the inn. As in the original game, this triggers a discussion between Galbadian Soldiers and Timber Soldiers, but this time, intervening and battling the G-Soldiers will be rewarded.

Dollet Communication Tower revisited *2Heading back to the Communication Tower after the SeeD mission on disc 1 triggers a non-escapable battle against a X-ATM092 variant that uses a different AI script and attacks (it would normally just fall down a cliff and that's it). The battle will likely be tough when attempting it at first occasion, as he starts nuking the party with strong AoE's if the battle takes too long. It should be easily doable on disc 2 or 3 though.

Galbadia Hotel *2After each stay at Galbadia Hotel in Deling City (at an increased price), the player receives one out of eight items randomly with equal probability. One of the items is the Magical Lamp, in case the player missed the first opportunity to get one by talking to Cid before heading to Timber on disc 1. Additional Magical Lamps can also be traded in for a random Stat Up or an Elixir at FH Seaside Station much later in the game (after the Lunar Cry event).

The old couple in Deling City *2Talk to the old man sitting at the bench near the sewer gates. He will complain about losing all his good cards to the old woman nearby and about losing a card pack somewhere in the city. If you manage to find it, you will have the option to pick up the cards for yourself or keep the bundle to give it back to its owner (I would recommend the latter, as this unlocks the old man as a card player as well). This can be done anytime before the point of no return at the end of disc 3. The possible rewards for this quest are as follows:

- 9 monster cards if you take the bundle's contents for yourself- 3 boss cards or 6,000 Gil if you decide to give it back to the old man

The monster hunter from Winhill *1The counter that keeps track of the defeated enemies during Laguna's patrol in Winhill now actually matters and is used to determine an item that Laguna receives from Raine at the very end of the flashback. The item can be anything from a few Potions all the way up to a Megalixir that requires at least 30 defeated enemies (v1.1.3 only).

More items in Fisherman's Horizon *1Talk to the man near the elevator when controlling Irvine after leaving the concert preparations. After the concert is over, talk to him again with Irvine in your party, and he will apologize for what he said earlier, handing out a Triple Triad card.

Rescuing the girl in Timber *1On disc 2 or 3, return to the Timber station and rescue the girl that is cowering on the floor from the arriving train. As in the original game, you will end up at Timber Hotel, but this time, your SeeD Rank increases and you will receive an item.

Trading in Trabia Garden *2There is one NPC in Trabia Garden who sells some of her belongings as her savings have been destroyed as a result of the missile attack. The player can use this opportunity to get good value for just 20,000 Gil: 2 boss cards and 3 different items. Buying or creating these items separately would be much more expensive.

The dog in Esthar *2Stop the dog running around the streets in Esthar to make him return to his owner nearby. If you then talk to the owner while having Pet Pals Vol.3 in your inventory, you have the option to give it to him for free for an item, or sell it to him for 15,000 Gil. If you don't have it in your inventory, he will hint at it. Can be done anytime before entering Lunatic Pandora as Zell and Edea.

The reluctant card player at Lunar Gate *1Challenge the right guard to a card game repeatedly until he agress, then play a game. He will hand over some items for having a good time, no matter if the actual game was won or lost. This can be done two times: before going to space, and then once more after the Lunar Cry event. Items received are different for the two occasions.

Rescuing the girl at Esthar's Shopping Mall *2Talking to the crying girl at the Shopping Mall will trigger a non-escapable and unique battle with 2 Behemoths in it. The reward is an item and a card. Can be done after Lunar Cry only.

Lunatic Pandora Laboratory research project *2After the Lunar Cry events, Esthar digs out its old mobile weapons and tries to improve them. At Lunatic Pandora Laboratory, the player has the option to try 3 different battles that consist of stronger variants of Gespers, Cyborgs and Elastoids. The battles can be repeated multiple times for no costs, but the rewards are one-time only.

Fire Cavern revisited *2After the Lunar Cry events, Zell will inform Squall about Fire Cavern having become a nesting ground for a couple of monsters from the moon, and the player can decide to clear them, with a puzzle-like boss battle waiting at the end, where Ifrit was fought at the beginning of the game. The reward is a rare item that is required to get one of the best weapons (v1.1.3 only).

Getting back to the Ragnarok on disc 4 *1Nothing has changed in regards to how the Ragnarok can be found on disc 4. The only difference is that Xu will hand over a bunch of items when entering the Ragnarok on disc 4 for the first time, to aid the party in their final battles.

*1 = Quest is already present in the base game, but has been changed to yield some real rewards*2 = Completely new, mod-only sidequest

As for changes to already existing sidequests, the Queen of Cards sidequest is worth mentioning:

Instead of the Minimog card, you need to lose the Quezacotl card to the Card Queen. This creates the Kiros card, which can then be found at Winhill Inn. Second, instead of the Sacred Card, the Card Queen now requests the Pandemona card. This will create the Irvine card, which can still be won from Flo in Fisherman's Horizon. The rest of the quest remains the same as in the base game.

Other than that, it's just the rewards that have been changed. I hope completing all the Chocobo Forests will be worth your trouble

Cactuar's Stat Bonus Abilities aren't supposed to be available from version 1.1.2 onwards, as their presence can still limit the incentive to level up, and getting rid of these also helps with maintaining character identity throughout the entire game. All in all, it was an oversight to keep them for Cactuar, so I would recommend just deleting them using Amnesia Greens. This also frees up space for some of the new Abilities he can learn in this mod.

Thank you Callisto, the list of added quests is massive in comparison to existing quests, well done, I think I missed most of the Disc1/2 quests. but that will make me do another playthrough, now with 1.1.3

Really nice mod and everything you did was perfect, the balance is right and I can now not only use attack like in the original but magic (which I still used in the original but felt like it's not as powerful as it should be). Overall, I will do another playthough with no hesitation.

Gotta ask you as well, can you give me the "not-precise" location of Zell Card? Mama Ditch doesn't have it and I read that it's one of the cards that you tinkered with Is it still in Balamb or maybe I should look somewhere else? (I have a feeling it's connected to Zell's "Girlfriend" )

It doesn't even matter how many of the library conversations the player has seen - the event at Balamb Hotel can always be triggered by talking to a woman that appears at Balamb entrance on disc 3, then talking to Ma Dincht, and then finally staying at the hotel with Zell in your party. The library visits only determine how much of the dialogue between Zell and the pigtail girl can be followed, and won't have an impact on the rewards at all.

All in all, the Zell card location was changed to give this particular sidequest a little more meaning, and also because I wanted to keep the Card Mod result (Hyper Wrist), which fits quite well, but just doesn't belong into the early-game, as early access to Strength+60% (30% in this mod, which is still good) is one of the most game-breaking elements in the base game.

Though I wanted to distance myself from FF8 after my very involved playthrough with probably dozens of pages of feedback on the mod, still couldn't help but keep an eye on this thread and the mod's development, and I have to say - it's almost unreal reading through your latest big update. I don't know if my rantings had any impact on what was to come but somehow once again you've managed to magically address just about every possible problem and/or improvement idea that ever came to my mind as I was playing. I seriously don't recall a single thing I commented on that hasn't been either fixed or improved. Ragnarok truly has become my dream-come-true version of the game, and I seriously can't wait to find the time to dive into it again. And maybe this time with less headache from trying to force a low level game, although I see you've already rectified the problems with that as well. Omega might still be undoable with a low level party though due to megiddo flame, lol.

Thinking back, I never got back to you with regards to my final feedback and the final boss conversation, I suppose I moved on to other things in such a hurry that I never got to finish those thoughts, regrettably - I can no longer remember what I wanted to say. Something regarding the balance/difficulty side of things for sure though, considering the unusually dire conditions I beat the boss in, haha.

Anyhow super awesome to see you still perfecting the beat, as it were. Thanks for your continued support of the mod and making it the best it can be. The definitive version of FF8.

While many of the points you made were already on my list back then, it was indeed your feedback that made me push some of the changes for the latest version, even though some of the results are different from what was initially planned. Maybe you remember me saying that I would like to keep the Stat Bonus Abilities until I find a replacement for them (some entirely new Abilities), but after thinking about what you said few times, I came to the conclusion that it's better to just remove them, even if there's no proper replacement for them yet.

The same can be said about Odin; it became more and more obvious that the mechanics are in need of a change, so he would no longer appear randomly at the beginning of battle without the player having a chance to stop this, resulting in forced EXP or missed opportunities to get a certain item from an enemy. The initial idea was to implement an option to toggle Odin on or off, but since I have never found a way to access the Odin variable through Deling Field editor, I came up with the item idea, which I think is a somewhat decent solution as well, even though if it means sacrificing Gilgamesh (for now).

So all in all, your feedback at least pushed me to find alternate, easier to implement solutions for various issues. Again, thanks for that, and also for your latest post in general. While this mod has evolved by quite a bit during the last couple of months, I still think there's room for improvement. For example, there's still the Aura spell, which is just toxic to this game's balance, and therefore should be replaced with a new spell, leaving just the rare Aura Stones, as said above. Other than that, using Darkside with max Strength, and hitting a major elemental weakness can now do tremendous amounts of damage to certain enemies, and sometimes negates any need for using spells and even Limit Breaks. Both issues will be addressed in a smaller update releasing soon.

Yea I really like how you got around the Odin situation, reinforcing the theme of meaningfully limited resources, as I liked to think about it. It feels appropriate in the context of the mod. Aww, poor Gilgamesh, what a shame. I'll truly miss you randomly interrupting a tense lategame bossfight in order to deal 1k damage to them.

I do remember being in favor of even more heavily restricting Aura, to the point where it becomes a super limited external resource with a set number of stones that can be acquired in the game rather than a spell that can be drawn&junctioned. I think I had a supply of around a dozen for the ultimecia castle and I enjoyed the thought of having to ration and carefully select the times of use so much that I imposed the restriction on myself even though I did have a full stack of Auras from UW, so I didn't allow myself to use it via magic. Really cool to see you've been steering the mod in that direction.

Just talking about balance in terms of damage output, different abilities and whatnot gets me so excited man. It was one of the best things in the mod, seeing how different strategies measured up against each other and fighting bosses over and over using all the different tools at my disposal. And it was exciting precisely because you had balanced it so well, in my opinion. I imagine you lifting the damage cap just cranked the whole thing up to 11, I'm gonna have so much fun when I manage to get into this. But even without playing, it does indeed sound like Darkside has just become the most convenient way of delivering the hurts against enemies with elemental weaknesses. Why bother with limits, GF's and others when you can just attack and deal a similar amount of damage? Good idea to only have 1 darkside in the game. I don't think I ever commented on that but I did find it weird when there were multiple. At least now you have to make a choice. Well, I'm blabbing again and this time without even playing. My God.

Yes, the Aura spell will be replaced soon, that much is certain. It should never be possible to gain such a powerful tool in masses, even if it's from an end-game super boss-like Ultima or Omega Weapon. I think the status in itself is comparable to Invincibilty in terms of value (if not even better) and there isn't a spell that grants Invincibility either, so I guess removing Aura as a spell would be adequate and help with balancing the late-game out.

As for the Aura replacement, I'll have to drop the idea for a high-level Water spell for now, as there aren't any animations that are entirely bug-free and compatible with Double/Triple at the same time. Will probably go with a strong support spell for the late-game instead, like one that combines the effects of Protect, Shell and Regen. Any other ideas, also in regards to spell name, feel free to share.

Darkside has become very powerful with the damage cap removed indeed. It feels a bit weird to finally have a way to inflict high and fast damage, without having to resort to spells and Limit Breaks, which often come with longer animations. I personally like it though, and I think the late-game needed that. But as said before, a few bosses take too much damage from it, due to having a major elemental weakness. A Bomb easily takes 60,000 HP with one hit, when being at max Strength and having Blizzaga junctioned to Elem-Atk, which I think is fine for minor enemies in general, but if you suddenly do 40,000 HP damage to one certain phase of the final battle, something is off and needs to be addressed. At the moment, I'm trying to make it so that 30,000 HP is the maximum damage that can be inflicted with Darkside on late bosses, which is about in line with the total damage that can be caused by a spell under Triple.

Anyway, progress is going well, so the Aura replacement and Darkside adjustments will be included soon.

1. By equipping the Return Damage Ability before battle, keeping defenses low intentionally to take more damage, and letting the Bomb slowly kill itself by acting passively throughout the entire battle.

2. By trying to get the Sleep or Stop status to stick on the Bomb (which can be difficult because of its high Vitality and Spirit in this battle), then keep using attacks that ignore defense until the Bomb dies.

3. By using Irvine's Armor Shot with close to maxed out Strength and enforcing Crisis Level 4, which is just enough to kill the Bomb with one attack.

Using LV Down does not belong to the intended methods. Will make it immune to it, thanks.

hey there, first of all i need to say WOW to your work man and sorry for the question, but i saw something about the second time into the fire cavern, do you made the Zell speach and changed the monsters? And a new boss?

I'll have to give Omega more attempts another day though. Tried a couple today hoping to not get a death since I couldn't unlock resurrection with Tiamat bugged. My last attempt was going pretty smooth but got unlucky when he casted an Ultima right after Terra Break before I could get a turn to heal. Turn order feels really tight now since I'm assuming he's skipping less compared to the last version. I'm loving the challenge though.

@Divatox: Yes, it's a small extra sidequest that has been added for version 1.1.3.

It can be done after returning from space, and Zell will automatically mention it inside Ragnarok, to inform the player about it. There are 6 custom enemy encounters in total, and at the end, a custom Bomb boss battle can be attempted (it is recommended to save the game outside Fire Cavern before heading to the crater where Ifrit was once fought, as there's currently no save possibility right before this battle).

It primarily serves as an opportunity to obtain an otherwise rare item that is required to get Zell's best weapon, and of course was also added for a little entertainment

@Yuey: Well observed. In fact, Omega Weapon's turn skip probability has been reduced to 0 for the latest version. In previous versions, it was 20%, which I thought is still too high for the strongest enemy in the game. Vengeance is a bit mean indeed, but then again, it can't touch your Auto-Abilities, such as Auto-Protect or Auto-Haste. Well, I hope you'll manage to defeat it next time.